Sadly I have to announce that Red Wolf Poems will present its last prompt on 1 January 2015. So there’ll still be two more prompt Thursdays to go before our finale.

But no worries, I’m sure, as there’re no lack of prompts in cyberspace and for some of us who’ve been on the prompt circuit long enough, we’ll still be cherry-picking prompts. We’re prompt maniacs for a good reason. It really helps to get a poem going and we can compare and contrast our poems with others who’ve written to the same prompt.

Enough said, though. Let’s get to this week’s prompt. It’s a wordle so here’re the words. One word selected from each of the poems submitted to Barbara’s trance prompt last week.

In addition to using the words above in your poem, you are further urged to write in the manner of an interior monologue contemplating the nature of existence. A meditation. An argument with God. Whatever gets your goose. You can draw inspiration from nature and be as desultory as you like (like skipping stones over water) but the overall subject is a deep contemplation of life.

I’ll quote bits from Theodore Roethke’s long poem, “What Can I Tell My Bones?” so you get the drift:

A bird sings out in solitariness
A thin harsh song. The day dies in a child.
How close we are to the sad animals!
I need a pool; I need a puddle’s calm.

*

The self says, I am;
The heart says, I am less;
The spirit says, you are nothing.

*

Mist alters the rocks. What can I tell my bones?
My desire’s a wind trapped in a cave.
The spirit declares itself to these rocks.
I’m a small stone, loose in the shale.
Love is my wound.

*

To try to become like God
Is far from becoming God.
O, but I seek and care!

I rock in my own dark,
Thinking, God has need of me.
The dead love the unborn.

*

A prisoner of smells, I would rather eat than pray.
I’m released from the dreary dance of opposites.
The wind rocks with my wish; the rain shields me;
I live in light’s extreme; I stretch in all directions;
Sometimes I think I’m several.

*

I recover my tenderness by long looking.
By midnight I love everything alive.
Who took the darkness from the air?
I’m wet with another life.
Yea, I have gone and stayed.

Sometimes don’t you, like me, think that’s what the hullabaloo about poetry is all about? To think with emotions and at the core of life, there’s a coil of emotions, serpent-like. Or do you think life is hollow? We are nothing. We are everything.

The man in his own comfortable chair is calm, re-assuring, non-threatening. He tells you to close your eyes, relax, relax. You think he sounds like the nice sort of rainy afternoon. He wants you to remember the past, and you do. Walking alongside the river of time he takes you farther back, and farther back. Even though you are certain this past life regression business is bunk, you recognize a face, understand the significance of the smell of smoke. You catch a glimpse of a dog, a flower, a tree. Nothing special. They feel like your own memories, these excerpts, though they aren’t. The man’s voice rustles like leaves, and you sit up and look around.

It’s Thursday, and it’s time to squeeze some words out of last week’s prompt “Text, Subtext and Hypertext”.

This is a three-parter, but fear not; it’s easy. Part one is a list of words taken from poems written to Irene’s prompt from last week. Part two is the addition of three extra words that are near-rhymes (frost, soft, dust). Part three is mention a child’s game in your poem.

As always, this prompt is meant for inspiration, so if the words stir other words to the front feel free to use those. All variations of the words are allowed (past tense, present tense, etc). You are also not required to use all the words, but you certainly may if you wish.

I hope you have fun with this week’s wordle, and when you’ve written your poem either post it to your blog leaving a link in the comment field so we can find your creation … or post your poem here in the comment field if you don’t have a blog.